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Sermon of the MonthJune 27, 2010 The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost “I will follow but first……” Luke 9: 51-62 I am thankful Susan has chosen the worship music for the rest of the summer for us. We want to wish her Godspeed as she heads for surgery later this week. I don’t intend to make light of it in any way, but this is clearly not a propitious time for Zion’s Hill “liturgical feet.” I am sure you will pray with me for her rapid recovery and a healing from years of discomfort and pain. Susan you have our prayers and support as you choose. Sometimes, and I don’t think it is accidental, my words and Susan’s hymn choice are in synch. She carefully makes her decisions with the assigned readings of the lectionary in mind. The part that is less studied is if I get in sync with the scriptures. This morning the hymn could serve as a commentary for the passage from Luke’s gospel. We could skip the sermon and just sing the hymn: Seek ye first the kingdom of God
There is another verse that isn’t in our version in the hymnal: Man does not live by bread alone The lesson from Luke includes a series of hard sayings that may lose us if they are not placed in context. That would be too bad as they challenge us to consider what the cost of following Jesus on the way demands; that is assuming we have some intention of following Jesus. Didn’t we just sing, “Seek ye first the kingdom, the reign of God.” Chapter nine is turning point for the gospel as a whole. Although not entirely geographical in its orientation Jesus’ ministry transitions from Galilee where he has been doing the work of ministry: healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons in persons lives, feeding the hungry. (The stuff my friend Sally Dyck mentions in the quote I pulled from an article she wrote for one of our magazines). Jesus also gives the disciples their marching orders and the authority to proclaim in word and deed the new reign of God. Although it wasn’t read in this cycle of the lectionary, the transfiguration has taken place earlier in the narrative, where Jesus consults with Moses and Elijah, the two central figures of Jewish faith. It is here in chapter nine that the disclosure of Jesus identity gains in significance. Peter’s confession is made: ‘Who do the crowds say that I am?’ 19They answered, ‘John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.’ 20He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered, ‘The Messiah of God.’ Jesus is the inheritor of the prophetic mantle, recipient of the power carried by Moses and Elijah. It is no accident that Luke offers this little aside. We are told that Herod has been hearing rumors that, John had been raised from the dead, 8by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the ancient prophets had arisen. 9Herod said, ‘John I beheaded; but who is this about whom I hear such things?’ (9:7-9) In the story of Elijah and Elisha, which we heard in part last week, and which is the lesson we didn’t read this morning from 2 Kings, Elijah is taken into heaven and his mantle, the prophetic mantle of power and healing, at God’s initiative, is given to Elisha. In a poignant departure Elisha insists on his faithfulness to Elijah and pledges to follow him. These images would have tickled Luke’s original audience’s memories and minds. One writer and I like the expression calls them “intertextual echoes.”[i] To know that what is going on is part of the great story of which we are part. It’s like hearing the Passover Haggadah read around the family table, or when we read the birth narrative on Christmas. It lifts us up into a sacred context that draws us to God. 14 [Elisha] took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, saying, ‘Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?’ When he had struck the water, the Jordan [water] was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha went over. Just like Moses and the Israelites at the Sea of Reeds. With all of this bubbling around us Jesus continues bringing us back to the current action. We hear from Jesus unequivocally what the cost of discipleship will be. What our taking up the mantle means now. 23 Then he said to them all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. 25What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves? Faithfulness may be expressed by embracing the suspense or ambiguity that is part of life and asking, “What is God calling me to do in this situation?” We may not have an answer until we risk an action and through the action God may assure us. [ii] Shall we sing the hymn verse again? Seek ye first the kingdom of God But it doesn’t end there. The disciples continue to follow him in their obduracy, in their stubbornness; they still don’t get it. 46 An argument arose among them as to which one of them was the greatest. 47But Jesus, aware of their inner thoughts, took a little child and put it by his side, 48and said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest.’ Then follows the transition: I have told you what coming on the way, following me is about. You have heard and seen and been up close and should understand what this is all about? After some more rebukes and misunderstandings Luke raises the stakes. “51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Just as we hear in our hearts the echo of Elijah and Elisha, so too Jesus will lead us to continue with him to Jerusalem. Across the Jordan. The way of discipleship: And all these things shall be added unto you. 57 As they were going along the road, someone said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ 58And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ 59To another he said, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ 60But Jesus* said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ 61Another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’ 62Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’ I will follow you, but . . . In all honesty and with full candor don’t we expect a more sensible and possible set of provisions? Are these gospel demands merely canards that are meant to discourage us all together. Are they, as one writer calls them, just “prophetic hyperbole?” Are they not beyond our reach, beyond our capacities and really only wishful impracticalities? Does Jesus expect us to give up our livelihoods? Are we expected to abandon our families, our children? Jesus apparently hasn’t been to Wilton. Are we really being asked to sacrifice honorable and appropriate responsibilities that we hold morally and culturally and traditionally sacrosanct? Yesterday the wise old sages of Zion Hill United Methodist Church considered just these questions. Don thought it politic to get out of town, Phil wasn’t with us, Bob Chandler attends New Canaan UMC, but Warren and Bob are here this morning as my witnesses. I offered them the opportunity to preach this morning. They declined. Is what the gospel asks not only impossible, but irrelevant, supporting all those out there who have given up on the Christian project all together? I confess that when thrown up against absolute demands my own sense of faithfulness is threatened. Back when I was first baptized and sought to follow Jesus I believed that what I was signing on for, was indeed contrary to the ways of the world, militantly contrary to the ways of the world. When I survey the world today what I thought Jesus was talking about seems more out of reach than it did forty-two years ago. Discipleship calls us to peacemaking, to honoring creation, to qualities of the spirit as Paul talks about in the Galatians’ letter, of, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” But what do we see and hear? Do these gifts get play in our surroundings? Does my faith address how to respond to the catastrophes of environmental degradation unleashed by our rapacious dependence on oil? Are we so inured to war because places like Afghanistan and Iraq and Pakistan seem so distant from our every day endeavors? Do we just close our minds and hearts to the death and destruction wrought by our leaders in our names? I am no hero by any stretch of anyone’s imagination but I have at least in my 62 years touched and smelled and seen the destruction to life and land and limb caused by some of these conflicts and wars. How can I claim to be a disciple, let alone a follower of Jesus after having visited projects in Afghanistan making prosthesis for victims of that conflict? I have visited children’s hospitals on the Mount of Olives and in the Gaza Strip that have been attacked by soldiers using ordinances manufactured and sold by the United States. To what does my discipleship call me? Is it because the benefits and lifestyle I live seem to be unaffected by the rhetoric of security, material and otherwise, patriotism, and empire? I wonder? What does it mean to follow my savior to Jerusalem? I will follow you, Lord; but . . . I surely haven’t an “absolutely” satisfying answer to my own questions. Neither did the wise old sages, yesterday morning. But we did consider two things or at least two things occurred to me, not blaming my prayer partners. First that God of love who we have come to know through Jesus Christ stands with us as we contemplate the hard questions and demands. Luke’s gospel at the very least asks, “What does Jesus want of me?” I can’t answer that for you and I don’t expect I will ever stop asking it of myself. What I believe or at least to what I have given my life is a church that still raises the questions along the way. I have seen people answer with their lives as they are able. Bruce Griffith who preached for us five weeks ago spent about 15 years with his wife helping with the production of those prostheses. His wife taught health care to pregnant women where there aren’t any hospitals. And have never been. So one of my answers is that we are called to do together what we can. And God will use such things to heal and mend this creation. In God’s own way and in God’s own time. I also believe that God agonizes over these same things with us. Why else send his son to bring us on the way? Why else resolve to go to Jerusalem and suffering and an unjust death? The second thing that I think I know is that the story isn’t over. Jesus is still walking with us along that same way to whatever the Jerusalems may be in our lives. One writer reflects on these passages by saying Luke here has “withheld resolution” to the passage. We are left hanging wondering what the three who said they would follow wound up doing? After they cared for their parents, their families and their livelihoods, what did their discipleship look like? How would we finish their stories? How will we finish our stories? I will follow you, but first . . . what will be next? Seek ye first the kingdom of God, And His righteousness. Allelu, alleluia.
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